A courtroom fell silent in Manhattan on January 3, 2022, as U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska unsealed Virginia Giuffre’s 2009 settlement with Jeffrey Epstein, revealing she received $500,000 and waived claims against “potential defendants,” sparking fleeting hope for Prince Andrew’s defense.
The nine-page agreement, from Giuffre’s Florida lawsuit accusing Epstein of trafficking her as a minor, included a clause releasing Epstein and “any other person or entity who could have been included as a potential defendant” from liability. Andrew’s lawyers seized on it in 2021–2022 motions to dismiss Giuffre’s civil suit, arguing he qualified as a “potential defendant,” thus shielded.
Judge Preska rejected the interpretation on January 12, 2022, ruling the clause did not clearly encompass Andrew and allowing the case to proceed. “The language is not sufficiently broad to cover third parties like Prince Andrew,” she wrote. The settlement’s release, after years sealed for privacy, intensified scrutiny of Epstein’s 2008 non-prosecution deal.
Giuffre’s attorney, David Boies, called the clause “standard” but irrelevant to Andrew, a non-party. The unsealing fueled Andrew’s eventual February 2022 £12 million settlement (no admission of liability) and royal exile. Giuffre’s posthumous memoir Nobody’s Girl (October 21, 2025) details the agreement’s coercive shadow, amplifying survivor demands.
The fleeting hope for Andrew’s defense evaporated—truth, once hidden, proved unwaivable.
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